The 10-part docuseries "Secrets of Playboy" promises to "explore the hidden truths behind the fable and philosophy of the Playboy empire through a modern-day lens." A&E's series, which premiered last week, partially delivers on that promise, though it holds back at critical junctures and spends far too much run time debunking a brand image that's been dead for decades.
Exactly no one will be surprised to discover that the late Hugh Hefner used and traded young women like commodities and that his mythology of Playboy as a progressive outgrowth of the sexual revolution and a bold expression of feminism was largely a charade. The women lured in by the excitement of Playboy magazine, which arrived in 1953, may have been shocked by the sleazy reality of the enterprise at the height of its power in the '60s and '70s, but who today still buys the sales pitch that Playboy and Hef, who died in 2017, were all about celebrating the girl next door?
Rampant drug use, the alleged predations of older men (including Bill Cosby, Peter Nygard and other luminaries), the travails of gullible young women and Playboy's broken promises to protect their interests and bodies are recounted via exclusive interviews with insiders, many of whom share their stories for the first time. Coupled with hours of archival footage from inside the "cult-like" environs of the mansion and the clubs, the docuseries skillfully depicts America's fluctuating moral standards from era to era, and Playboy's response to those shifts.
